Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (16 page)

Next, there is consternation in the "session" (governing body) of Miss Julia's local Presbyterian church. It seems that Wesley Lloyd Springer made verbal promises to fund a new family-oriented activities center, and the church was counting on Miss Julia to make good on those promises out of the considerable estate that her husband left her. Now, with a son suddenly in the picture, the church is afraid the money will go to this rival, nine-year-old claimant. They are plotting to sue to have the will set aside. Someone must tip off Miss Julia, but rather than introducing yet another character to do so, Ross appoints Sam Murdoch to the church's session, though as the novel opens he has resigned because of the maneuver that the session is planning.

Now, many protagonists have sidekicks or best friends who stick by them and serve as sounding boards throughout a novel. That is not Sam Murdoch's function in
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind.
That role is played by Miss Julia's longtime housekeeper, Lillian. Sam is, rather, Miss Julia's sage advisor and troubleshooter—and Miss Julia manages to get herself into quite a lot of trouble before the novel is over.

So it is natural and satisfying when, tying up loose ends at the novel's conclusion, Miss Julia tells us how she resolved her fear of the sinful sickness that her minister Pastor Ledbetter has told her that she suffers, with the help of—who else?—Sam Murdoch:

"You better turn me loose, Sam" I said, unable to leave him under my own steam. "Pastor Ledbetter and Dr. Fowler said I'm suffering from"—I lowered my voice, hardly daring to say the word but wanting to protect Sam from the consequences—
"nymphomania."

"Wha-at?" He started laughing and he laughed so hard, I tried to pull away from him so I could hide in a dark corner somewhere. "Oh, Julia, why didn't you tell me you were suffering from this condition?" He ran a finger down the side of my face and said, "Don't you know I've got the cure for that?"

And he does, and that's really all I'm going to say on the subject.

I guess Miss Julia doesn't speak her mind about everything. Ann B. Ross does use Sam Murdoch in multiple ways, however, and her novel is warmer for it.

What about your current manuscript? Are there roles that can be combined? It may take less work than you think to accomplish it—and it may add more than you can measure to your novel's sense of complexity.

________EXERCISE

Combining Roles

Step 1: In two columns, list the following: (1) The names of all major, secondary, and minor characters. (2) The purpose of each in the story. (Jot down their purposes in as few words as possible, for example:
supports the protagonist, supports the antagonist, provides special knowledge,
etc.)

Step 2: If you have ten or fewer characters, cross out the name of one. Delete him from the story. Yes, do it. If you have more than ten characters, cross out the names of two. Go ahead. It's just an exercise.

Step 3: Your cast list is now shorter by one or two, but there remain one or two functions to be served in the story. Assign those functions to one or more of the remaining characters.

Follow-up work: Are there other characters in your cast who can take on multiple roles? Go down the list and note the possibilities, then put them into practice. Find at least two more roles to combine into one.

Conclusion:
Were you able to complete this exercise? Some authors have great difficulty with it. Most, though, find that the number of characters in their cast can be reduced. Furthermore, the remaining characters get more interesting. Why? Because not only do they have more to do, but they have become characters who are capable of more.

Public Stakes

T
hings can go wrong in so many different ways, don't you agree? We sometimes think:
It can't get any worse than this.
But it can. That is the essence of raising the outward, or public, stakes: making things worse, showing us that there is more to lose, promising even bigger disasters that will happen if the hero doesn't make matters come out okay.

Raising the public stakes is easy in thrillers, mysteries, action adventure novels, and science fiction and fantasy stories. The action in such novels usually has significance for more than just the characters involved. Public safety and security are issues. But what about sagas, coming of age stories, family dramas, and romances? Whether or not everything turns out well in such stories won't make much difference to the rest of the world, will it? Are there public stakes in these novels and, if so, how do they get raised?

Cowboy romances have become a staple of the genre, and among the best practitioners is Joan Johnston. Her novel
The Cowboy
is the first of a trilogy of novels about two feuding south Texas ranching families, the Blackthornes and the Creeds.

What sets them against each other? The Blackthornes are rich; the Creeds struggle. The Blackthorn ranch, Bitter Creek, completely surrounds the Creed spread, Three Oaks. The Blackthorn patriarch, known as Blackjack, covets the Creed land and, as if that were not enough, also covets the Creed matriarch. (She, it must be said, also still loves him from long ago.)

The feud is nearly overcome by young Trace Blackthorne and Callie Creed when they fall in love as undergraduates at the University of Texas. But then word comes that Callie's younger brother, Sam, has been put in a wheelchair by Trace's younger brother in an accident on the high school football field— or was it an accident?

Callie must return to the ranch to help her family, leaving her college degree and wedding plans with Trace in the dust. Trace, bitter, disappears, not knowing that Callie is carrying his child. Montagues and Capulets? A secret baby? So far we are in familiar romance territory. An uncaring category romance writer might easily churn these simple conflicts for sixty thousand words and

tell a story that satisfies her contract, but Johnston has her sights aimed higher. Let us see how she relentlessly raises the public stakes.

Fast-forward eleven years: Callie is a young widow, having married the Three Oaks foreman, who died a year earlier. Times are hard at Three Oaks. They are barely getting by. Callie doesn't need complications. It is, of course, at this moment that Blackjack has a heart attack and Trace returns to help manage Bitter Creek; and, he hopes, to win back Callie.

Blackjack, apparently not much slowed by his heart attack, now covets the Creed land more than ever. Any setback to the Creed clan represents a new opportunity to entice them to sell. But Callie is determined not to do that— and is even more determined to resist her all-too-clear attraction to Trace, who she hates for walking out on her, as she sees it, years before.

Question: Can Callie's twin problems—save the ranch, resist Trace—get worse? Oh, yes, much worse. Is it also possible that her fate can matter to the rest of the world? Are there public stakes here?

Again, yes. By making Callie's problems outward problems—that is, problems imposed on her by outside forces—Johnston slowly but surely makes Callie's story everybody's story. Who has not had a string of multiple disasters, run-ins with enemies, and just plain bad luck? We all have. Anyone can identify with Callie, especially as her problems compound.

As Johnston's novel progresses, calamity piles on calamity for Callie. The Creeds are counting on selling some of their fine quarter horses, but four of them are stolen. On the romantic front, at a dance Trace declares his intention to win her back in brusque cowboy fashion: